Now that Jason Gray has officially released his new album, it’s the ideal time to disclose the second half of our interview with the Minneapolis-based songwriter. If you missed Part One, you can hear all about the lead single “Remind Me Who I Am” there. Here, Jason discusses writing with Andy Gullahorn, confronting his fears and using the word “doppelganger” in an actual song. Matt: The best place to start seems to be the title: A Way To See In The Dark. We were discussing identity earlier in our conversation as the album’s primary theme, so is the title an allusion to that? In other words, does our Christian identity provide a way to see in the dark? Jason: Like I said earlier, I originally set out to write songs around the theme of identity, but later released myself from that and gave myself permission to write whatever songs came knocking. When I turned the songs in to John Mays, head of A&R and executive producer of the record, he wrote me an email saying something to the effect of: “the word fear comes up in almost every song. Do you need to talk to somebody or get some help?” I laughed about that and of course saw that he was right! In the liner notes of the album, I wrote about the different kinds of darkness: “The shame that leads us to forget that we are loved by God is a darkness that drives us, in the words of Waylon Jennings, to look ‘for love in all the wrong places…’ The fear that we are abandoned and alone, like Shakespeare’s ‘poor naked wretches… that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm’ is a darkness that tempts us to despair. The shadow of doubt that looms when life breaks our hearts is a kind of darkness that threatens to swallow us whole. But into each of these comes an invitation – a call that is both simple and complicated, as easy as it is impossible. We are invited to trust, and in trusting to discover a new way of seeing that can lead us out of the dark. ‘Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,’ is how the writer to the Hebrews describes it.” So identity is certainly a part of that – it’s having faith in God’s love for us on the days when the person in the mirror doesn’t look particularly worthy of love. Believing in our essential belovedness is a way of seeing in the dark – If I believe God loves me, that he’s invested and has indeed carved my name in the palm of his hand, well, that’s assuring, isn’t it? I’m also thinking as you ask this of a conversation I had with Paul Mabury, the drummer for this record, about things that Christians do and take for granted but might look odd to those observing us. The way we pray in public came up and how it might look strange to people watching when we’re hanging out at a restaurant talking, laughing, and then the food comes and everybody looks down, closes their eyes, and starts mumbling. We talked about the virtues of praying with our eyes wide open, and as though Christ is seated at the table among us, and how meaningful that could be. But afterwards I thought of how meaningful it could be, too, that we close our eyes. It could, if we let it, be an act of surrendering our vision, turning instead to another way of seeing: trust. At best, with our eyes wide open, we’re told we only see through a glass darkly. So why not abandon my vision (unreliable as it is weak) altogether – closing my eyes as I reach into the dark for the hand of the one who can see all things including my future? That’s what closing my eyes to pray means to me now. Matt: That word fear is something you directly confront. I love that “No Thief Like Fear” isn’t some timid song, but something you’ve turned into a rousing sing-along of sorts. Purposeful? Jason: Yeah, we wanted that one to feel kind of rowdy, with a kind of chorus that might feel at home in an Irish pub. Given the nature of fear, what it takes from us, it seemed like anger is an appropriate response, so it is a kind of angry anthem – as angry as a mild-mannered singer/songwriter can get with his acoustic guitar, anyway. Matt: Any surprises for fans on the new release? A ‘where did that come from’ moment? Jason: When I first met with producer Jason Ingram to talk about the sonic signature of this record, I did want to surprise my audience. My suggestion was to completely abandon the acoustic guitar and make it more programmy/keyboard driven like Vampire Weekend or Derek Webb’s recent work. Ingram said, “That’s funny, because I was thinking the opposite, that we should embrace your acoustic guitar playing this time out.” We then went back to his studio and wrote “Remind Me Who I Am” which is really acoustic driven, but then dressed it up with that synth part makes it feel kind of like Mumford & Sons meets Owl City – a convergence of our different sonic ideas for the record. That feels kind of surprising to me, but in a modest way. There are maybe a couple surprises lyrically. I offer a level of self-disclosure that might surprise people in “Without Running Away”. The song “I Will Find A Way” that I wrote with Andy Gullahorn has a surprise ending that takes my breath away every time even though I know it’s coming. Your question makes me think of the temptation for an artist to always try to blow people’s minds by doing something completely unexpected. A lot of that instinct is really good and nurtures compelling art, but another part of it can be ego driven, I think. At least in my own heart. These days I’m inclined to think there is also virtue to invisibility. A certain kind of song can draw attention to the brilliance of the artist. Another kind of song can draw people deeper into their own story, where the artist and artistry mean less than the inner conversation it initiates. Does that make sense? I remember I struggled with this on the last record with the song “The Golden Boy & The Prodigal” where I used the word “doppelganger” – I worried it was too flashy, that it drew too much attention to itself or to my vocabulary, or whatever. There was a time I would have loved that I got a 50 cent word like that into a song. But the fact that I wrestled with it here I think is growth for me. Matt: Can you tell us more about writing with Gullahorn? Was that your first time together? Jason: No, I’ve been lucky to write several songs with Andy, two that he’s even recorded for his own projects. Andy is one of my favorite writers and I still find it hard to believe he lets me hang out with him. He’s one of the cool kids. And he’s a decent bowler. Andy is a great storyteller and fans of his music know that he’s really good at delivering the “twist” at the end of a song. He’s kind of like M. Night Shyamalan that way — when Shyamalan was still cool. The song “I Will Find A Way” was based on a piece that author Walt Wangerin wrote called “An Advent Monologue”, so we already had the story and the surprise ending, but I had worked on the song for about six years before stalling out on it. I think I was so afraid of failing the source material that I was paralyzed. I brought it to Andy and he loved the idea as much as I did, and helped me bring it across the finish line. I had fleshed out parts of what are the middle verses of the song and had part of a chorus, but Andy immediately saw that it needed to begin at the beginning – that we needed to set the stage: “At the end of this run down tenement hall is the room of a girl I know…” Of course that’s where you begin! It’s so obvious now, but I couldn’t find it on my own. Once we had the way in, then the song kind of opened itself up to us. Andy’s writing has such heart and emotion, and he helped me take the song beyond being conceptual to the kind of song that could break your heart open. I’m grateful that Andy cared about this one as much as I did, and together I think we wrote the best song I’ve ever been a part of. I should add, too, that as talented as Andy is, he’s so easy to write with – he’s a humble man (except maybe on the bowling lanes) and I never feel intimidated when I write with him, which says a lot about his character considering how gifted he is. Matt: So what is the most important thing you’d want Rabbit Room readers to know about the new album? Jason: Woooo, that’s kind of a big question. Well, I guess it’s less something I want them to know than it is something I would wish for them to feel. I hope people feel loved when they hear the songs. I remember Fred Rogers talking about how he tried to focus all of his love into the camera when filming his show so that the children watching would feel love pouring into their living rooms. He talked about broadcasting grace throughout the land. I hope it’s not too immodest to say that I hope people have some kind of experience like that. I wrote the songs for them, in service to God, after all. I tried to let that guide everything about the record. Even and especially the writing of the more commercially viable songs that we hoped might serve radio well. I have written with people in the past who want to write hits for their own sake and reward, but writing a pop song – a song that is easily understood and accessible to a broad audience but that isn’t pandering – can be a way of loving people. Writing a singer/songwriter kind of song like “I Will Find A Way” can also be a way of loving the kind of listener whose heart opens to those kinds of songs. The occasional use of the word “doppelganger” might be love to a certain segment of people, too. The more I do this the more I think this is my job – to love my audience with the love of God. I hope I’m getting better at it and that it comes through the songs. #JasonGray

Dear Readers, Hutchmoot 2011 is adjourned. Tonight after everyone went home and we locked up the church, Jennifer, Pete, Shauna, Jamie and I sat around with full bellies and thankful hearts and read your comment cards aloud. Just like last year, it was one of my favorite parts of the event. The tension eased from our shoulders and we spent a few hours enjoying the quiet, the afterglow of a joyful few days, and stories about our favorite moments. We made notes of some of the great suggestions for next year and were encouraged by your comments about this year. Once again, it seems everyone loved the food. You also loved the community, the storytelling, the conversations, the new friendships forged, the masseuse (yes, there was a masseuse), the coffee, the music, and the story about Thomas McKenzie blowing up the Taylor Mart. (I won’t mention Andrew Osenga’s story.) If you weren’t here this weekend, never fear. Assuming the recordings turned out, we’re planning to post some of the sessions as podcasts in the near future, and I’m sure some of the presenters will post their talks as pieces sooner or later. In the meantime, we’d love to read about your experiences, your impressions, or your revelations. Also, if you’re a blogger or an artist or have a website and you want to share it with other attendees, here’s the place. We meant to compile a list at the ‘Moot but didn’t get to it in time. On behalf of Pete and the rest of the Rabbit Room crew, thank you for coming. Your presence was an immense blessing. The Proprietor

Note: I wrote this a few years ago for a CCM article. There was a limit to the word count, and I remember having a hard time not writing pages and pages about all the ways Rich’s life has affected my own. I can’t remember if it was ever published, so I dug it out in honor of the man whose music and ministry quite literally changed my life. As of this week, Rich has been dead for fourteen years, but his memory is very much alive. ——————————– Today I drove across the wide prairie that lies at the feet of the Grand Tetons. My wife of twelve years and our three children were with me on the journey, and as is our custom on long trips, we let the kids take turns choosing the music. We listened to Riders in the Sky (the best cowboy music around), the soundtrack to Silverado (the best Western film score ever), and some Sara Groves (who doesn’t have much at all to do with the Wild West, but who was a welcome salve after ten hours of the kids choosing the aforementioned music). We rounded the bend at sunset and there before us stood those craggy Tetons, all gray stone with white snow tucked into the fissures. The clouds were gold with sunlight and long, misty fingers of rain dangled from them, caressing the peaks and the aspen- and fir-covered shoulders of the range. Who else but Rich Mullins could write music that would adequately suit a scene like that? I demanded the iPod, selected A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band, and we drove the next forty-five minutes without speaking. We weren’t speaking because we were being spoken to. Rich’s music has a finely tuned resonance. Some people hear his songs and miss the vibration completely, while others, like myself, are rattled to the bone. Driving today in the shadow of the mountains, my bones were rattling with the Gospel, and it was the Gospel according to Rich. He sang about a God who bares his holy arm in the sight of the nations, who roars and smites and laughs from heaven at his enemies. A God to be reckoned with. But the God Rich knew—the God he knows—is also one of tenderness and deep mystery and patient love. He’s a God who thought to make the color green, whose mercy rains down from heaven and trickles even to the brown brick spines of our dirty blind alleys. I remember Rich saying in a live recording from years ago that God is like the kid who beats you up and then gives you a ride home on his bike. I’ve learned a lot about God from Rich, mainly because he put to words the things I already knew were true: I have been beaten up, and I have been carried home. I could write all day about the ways God has blessed me and changed me by way of Rich’s music; I could write all day about the ways I have missed his wry, odd wisdom in the midst of the industry I find myself so often befuddled by; I could also write about the way Rich’s writing craft leaves me awestruck and humbled; or about the countless stories I’ve been told by those he either knew or was known by; or about the uncanny number of artists I know who point to Rich as one of their chief influences, both spiritual and musical. But today, after that glorious drive through the West while listening to him sing about America and Jesus and the very truth of God, I can only here express my gratitude to God for Rich’s ability to remind me that it is to God alone that I am to be grateful. There’s nothing else an artist could better aspire to than to leave that legacy. I have sung his songs and read his writings and stood at his grave and am convinced that in his barefoot, quirky, grace-filled wake he left a pair of shoes that no one will ever fill.

I’m pleased to announce the release of a new album: Above These City Lights (Live). (Get it here.) We recorded it last fall on the Counting Stars release tour, and then things got busy. Not only did we immediately hit the road for the Christmas tour, I spent all Spring writing The Monster in the Hollows. Meanwhile, the indubitable Todd Robbins (who mixed Resurrection Letters II and engineered Counting Stars–not to mention DC Talk’s Jesus Freak, but who’s counting?) took all the files from the live show and made them sound even purtier. The project was originally intended to be an EP that highlighted a few of the songs from Counting Stars but when we heard how “High Noon”, “After the Last Tear Falls”, and especially the Rich Mullins masterpiece “Calling Out Your Name” turned out, we decided to make it more of a full-length record. At long last, the album is ready for your ears. One of my favorite things about this album is the cover. My son Aedan is an unabashed Bird Nerd. He loves ornithology. He also loves painting and illustration. The starling on the cover is one of his excellent paintings–that it made the cover is all the more delightful because he’s only twelve years old. I paid him $25 for it. (Don’t tell him that that’s way lower than the going rate. I don’t want him to get too big for his britches.) He and his pal Cooper have an art blog called The Crimson Phoenix, and they’ve been displaying their drawings there for a long time. By all means, drop in and drop them a line of encouragement. I’m so proud to see how hard they’re working at their craft. It goes without saying that Ben Shive and Andy Gullahorn are amazing. I’m reminded of that all over again when I listen to their tasteful, skillful performances on this record. As much as I love studio work, and as much as I love songwriting, my real pleasure is the exchange between you and I at a live concert. The connection is the thing. I hope you can hear the gratitude we felt as we played these songs, and I hope that somehow, thanks to the wonder of all the ones and zeroes that make up an MP3 file, they’ll connect with you, too. Thanks also to Centricity Music for putting this whole thing together. I’m so grateful for them. And not just because they make short films that exploit my vast nerdiness. I hope you enjoy the music. AP

Every music minister knows the weekly anxiety of searching for the right songs for the upcoming Sunday service. The criteria may differ from church to church, but hopefully, the goal is to find songs that tie in thematically with the sermon or the weekly scripture reading. However, I know of a pastor on the west coast who directed his music minister to follow a grid when planning the music service—a large W—meaning that the service starts with upbeat songs that slowly give way to medium ballads, then go up again, then back down, before sending the congregation off with a happy bang. Never mind the content. The music becomes a space filler and provides the congregation with a reason to stand up and clap, or to settle down and get ready to dish out an offering, or listen to a sermon. I used to serve in a church that followed a similar grid. It was always those dang happy songs that gave me the hardest time. Not that there wasn’t a plethora to choose from, but the upbeat songs were always so corny and forgettable. These days, no one sings the ones we used back then and I imagine the same fate will follow many of today’s happy slappy modern worship songs. Now that I’m in an Anglican church the weekly song search is much more complicated than the W model. There’s the lectionary to deal with—scripture passages that are appointed for every week of the year: an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, an Epistle reading (or one from Acts), and finally the Gospel reading. These readings are arranged according to the narrative of the Christian calendar: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time (the season after Pentecost). More often than not, there’s an obvious theme that ties all the readings together such as contrition, service, God’s faithfulness, baptism, etc. I’ve learned to love the challenge of discovering that theme and finding the perfect songs to underscore and enhance the various portions of the Anglican mass. This process in the last year and a half has opened the door for me to many rich and beautiful hymns that I’d never heard before. It’s how I stumbled upon the stunning hymn “Come Down, O Love Divine” (lyrics: Bianco De Siena; Music: Ralph Vaugh Williams) in the weeks before Pentecost Sunday last year. Here are the verses as we sing them at our church: [audio:ComeDownOLoveDivine.mp3] Come down, O love divine, seek Thou this soul of mine, And visit it with Thine own ardor glowing. O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear, And kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing. O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn To dust and ashes in its heat consuming; And let Thy glorious light shine ever on my sight, And clothe me round, the while my path illuming. Let holy charity mine outward vesture be, And lowliness become mine inner clothing; True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part, And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing. And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long, Shall far out-pass the power of human telling; For none can guess its grace, till he become the place Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling. I’m drawn to the specificity of this hymn. It’s about something. It’s about a specific event in the Christian narrative. The humble stance, the plaintive tone; it’s a perfect hymn about God pouring out his Holy Spirit on a contrite heart that’s found redemption through Jesus Christ. Let this be an encouragement to modern hymn writers—a cause for inspiration to those who are suffering from writer’s block. There are so many Biblical scenes to choose from that would make for beautiful songs: the transfiguration of Christ, the feeding of the five thousand, the woman at the well, the stoning of Stephen, water baptism, washing of the disciple’s feet, the betrayal of Judas. If just a few good modern hymn writers tackled some of these subjects, the anguish that untold thousands of music ministers suffer weekly could be greatly diminished. It’s easy to write a chorus that says: God, you are a Holy God I need your grace to see me through I need your mercy to make me new Let me live each day for you. I just made that up in two minutes and there’s nothing wrong with it. It might fit easily and competitively among the hundreds of worship songs that are available to choose from. But compare those lines to the third stanza from the above hymn: Let holy charity mine outward vesture be, And lowliness become mine inner clothing; True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part, And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing. It took some real thought to craft those lines. They’re timeless. They set a standard for all of us who write music for the church. I didn’t set out to write a didactic piece. I’m reminding myself, too. Be specific when you write songs about God. Avoid cliché. Avoid convenience. Avoid an obsession with the consumer. Avoid the temptation to make commercial success your central goal. Write with intelligence, employing all the craft, skill, and experience with which God has endowed you. ————————————————————– Fernando Ortega is a singer/songwriter and song leader at a church in Albequerque, New Mexico. He and I toured together about ten years ago and have been friends ever since. I’d rather hear him sing a hymn than anyone else on earth. His new album Come Down, O Love, Divine is available here and at iTunes. –The Proprietor

One of my favorite storytellers doesn’t write books. He doesn’t write songs, either. But his stories quicken my imagination and teach me about beauty and light and the mind of God. He’s an artist and illustrator named Justin Gerard, and I’m pleased to let you know that he’s our official artist-in-residence for Hutchmoot 2011. I discovered Justin Gerard years ago via his involvement with Portland Studios, an art studio in Greenville, South Carolina. He painted the cover of my 2005 album The Far Country, the cover painting for On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, and has illustrated two of the three Wingfeather Saga books. Yes, ladies and germs, that makes me a fan. It takes a special gift to do more with a picture than illustrate a scene. You could be at the top of your game as an artist in terms of skill and craft, and you could inspire admiration—but it’s another kind of artist who can inspire wonder. It’s a true artist who can make you hungry for beauty the way a the chef in the kitchen can make you hungry for dinner. Here’s what I mean: imagine a painting of a forest with gnarled, beautiful old trees and beams of light angling down through the leaves to puddle on the deep green grass. Can you see it? Now imagine the same picture, but with a worn footpath winding from the foreground and into the trees, around the fat trunks, to disappear in the distance, where you think you might see a clearing. It’s no longer just a picture of an ancient wood; now it’s a picture of an adventure. That’s what Justin does with his images. He invites you into what’s behind the picture. It’s what I mean when I say that he’s one of my favorite storytellers. Next weekend at Hutchmoot, Justin and Russ Ramsey will be presenting a session called “Interview with a Dragon Maker”, and Justin will be working on a painting from Tolkien’s Silmarillion over the course of the weekend. We’re honored to have him. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll wake up your inner ten-year-old and peruse his website for a while. Then sit down and write.

Our identity in Christ has profound practical applications, and each one of those sounds across the landscape of our new life with the promise of hope and strength. We are new creations, holy, one spirit with the Lord. We no longer live but Christ lives in us as our righteousness. We now are to live by reliance on him. These statements ask us to move differently into each day we are given, but what does it look like experientially to put our entire spirit, soul, and body into faithing in the new Reality? Well, first of all it means opening our eyes to our real identity, eating his flesh and drinking his blood, building our self-concept on who Christ is, in us, what he has accomplished on our behalf, what he will accomplish through us. The Bible gives a completely different picture of reality than the world. Identity comes from God, not from performance, not from behavior. Christianity is not a “climb to the top of the mountain and become a guru” religion. It is a living, active, in-this-moment reliance on an indwelling Person, who has come to live inside us by grace through the Cross. The first question is, “Do I really believe this? Does Christ live in me?” The second question would be, “Is he willing and able to live through me, as if it were me living, if I faithe in him?” If we don’t believe these propositions, it’s high time to get the Bible out and start digging, because we are believing in a sub-Christian Word of God. But let’s say we know these two things as Fact. What then, does it look like? How does it work out in real-time? A relationship is built on trust. Confidence. Mutual love. Also, it is built. As we relate, trust grows. Confidence builds. Love grows deeper, bigger. We can’t build a close, deep relationship with a transcendent God who is somewhere “way up there” and who never speaks to us, anymore than a husband and wife could live 2000 miles apart for all the years of their marriage and only write letters. We need the immanent to begin to reveal the transcendent. As faithers in Jesus Christ, we have been given the very source and ground of Life itself; in him all things live and move and have their being, and he holds all things together. Inside of me, inside of you, lives the power that spoke, and nothing became everything. Does he not have the power to keep us from sin, to manifest love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, and faith through us? As this relationship is revealed, shown forth, built, we become more confident. The unseen becomes more real than the seen. Jesus becomes more real than circumstances, or fears, or all the other things we feel in our souls. Back to the original question. What, then, does “betting the farm” look like? In any situation, especially those of temptation, it means reiterating to ourselves that Christ is our real-time, here-and-now righteousness. More specifically, Christ is the particular virtue we need to get through the temptation moment. If we need patience, endurance, we have the patient, enduring One living inside us. We can turn to him in faith to let his patience and endurance flow through us. I sometimes say things out loud, if alone. Lord, you are perfect patience within me. I am betting the farm that your patience is flowing through me right this moment; Christ is living through me right here, right now.. I am putting my complete faith in you here. Then I step out in expectation that he will do what he has promised: “I will cause you to walk in my ways, and keep my statutes.” To use another example, let’s say we need purity in a particular situation. Well, who am I? I’m just a cup, a vessel, a branch. I have no ability to independently produce fruit, to be pure on my own. But who is Jesus? He is the source of Purity. Where is he? Well, he lives inside of me. Can that purity, or patience, or joy, or love, be transmitted from his Spirit in me into my spirit, through my soul, through my body, my life, my actions? That question, answered rightly, is where the spinning tires hit the pavement and squeal off, squirrelly at first, but soon gaining speed and stability. What about the rules? What about the commands? The commands are there partly to reveal – they reveal when we are not abiding, when we have tripped up in our trust and have started again to try being righteous by our own steam. The cure is to go back out of Romans 7 via the narrow gate called No Condemnation in Christ and get back into living in the faith-life of Romans 8. But I run ahead; that’s all for the next post.

The bicycle pictured above is from Vashon Island, Washington. Some history can be learned here, but it appears most people don’t know where the bike came from. Some say it was left there by a young man who went off to fight in the Great War, never to return. That’s how I first heard of it and it got me thinking. A picture’s worth a thousand tears. When I’m leaving the house I sometimes think, “If I died today, what will they find of mine and what will it mean to them?” It can be a healthy question, or worrisome and destructive. It’s good to evaluate what impact we’re having and whether that impact will carry on in the direction we hoped for after we’re gone. Whenever I leave, how will I leave things? It is good to consider. Of course, it’s unhelpful to overestimate our importance. God is in heaven and we are on earth. So let us not believe we are what you might call essential equipment for the operation of the world. As Charles De Gaulle said: “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.” My prayer: Oh, God. What I have built by destroying, destroy. What I have made by distortion, unmake. May the things I have shaped as things ought and shall be shaped, carry on. What will we pass on when we pass on? Someday, when our prayers for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is heaven” are fully and finally answered, the earth will be filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea. Someday the bikes will be reclaimed and we will go to war no more. Hear. One of the most beautiful passages in the history of worlds and words. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever. (Micah 4:1-5 ESV) Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. This all reminds me of the song Chrome, by the poet laureate of abandoned bikes, Eric Peters. To see more of Eric live and in human-person, check out the concert he did right here in the Rabbit Room.

I walked down our gravel drive along the fence and saw a little fruit-pod on a vine. God started me to thinking about it. A tree grows in good soil. It produces fruit. The fruit carries the seeds. The fruit hangs over other ground. It falls, and bursts open. If the ground is receptive, another tree begins to come up. The fruit, the flesh of it, is the thing that carries and eventually nourishes the seeds as the fruit falls and time goes on. What if in the church we were often rejecting real, full-on spiritual fruit production and trading it for a little fruit mixed with a lot of self-effort and busy-work? What if we were so infected by the way the world thinks and operates in its “Just Do It” attitude that we are missing out on the miracle of being branches dropping love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, and faith into the lives of those around us – effortlessly, easily, freely? What if our thinking is so permeated by the world’s performance-based thought system that we are afraid of actual Reality, of real Love, of real Joy? In place of depending on the Vine, we think we are the Vine and even the Gardener, and that we have to keep ourselves, manage ourselves, and cause ourselves to bear fruit, asking God for a little help now and then. We think we are independent selves who must be good, so we build Law-fences and sin-boundaries to help keep ourselves on course. What if the plan of God was so much freer than that? What if his plan is to so bind us to himself in spirit, soul, and body that we no longer need to have Law-fences? What if his intention is to make us his total, complete bond-slaves so that we can be ultimately and finally free, not someday with Heavenly pie-in-the-sky, but here, now, productive in endless love, effortless joy, here and now?  What if we were unequivocally free from having to worry about sin because we are so taken up with the love and joy and power of the Lord Jesus Christ living in us and through us? If we put ourselves under Law, under self-effort, trying to produce righteousness by our own striving human will (even “with God’s help”), we make Christ ineffectual in us. Romans 7 says this is the attitude which causes us to sin. We hinder or completely stop fruit production when we rely on our own strength, on rules, law-fences, and refuse to put our full-hearted reliance into the One who lives in us. Galatians says that by trying to do a single thing in our own strength, we make Christ of no effect to us, of no real-time use, saved from Hell ultimately, but living in it here and now. God “works all things after the counsel of his own will,” and “works all things together for good.” He will let legalism stir up sin in us, because that is what independent self-effort does. It cuts us off from the effectual expression of Christ-life through us. Eventually, we begin to see the truth: none of us can live the Christian life by any measure of our own steam. Until we “bet the farm” on God’s ability to keep us, use us, and bear fruit through us, we live sub-Christian lives. “My yoke is easy, my burden light.” Are we pulling a hard yoke? Is our burden heavy? If so, we’d better check to see whose yoke we’re pulling, whose burden we’re carrying. We’ll talk about what “betting the farm” looks like next time.

With Jason Gray’s recent release of his single “Remind Me Who I Am,” it seemed the perfect time for another Rabbit Room interview. One beautiful facet of the Rabbit Room lies in the direct access to the artists that we love so much and the opportunity to hear them expound on their own feelings, behaviors, or experiences. Yet from time to time, a conversation will illuminate more than merely an essay. Here, Jason talks about the violent “one-two punch” of fear and shame and why he wanted to sit apart from heavy hitters like Third Day and Michael W. Smith. Matt: You gave us a first taste of the album in your recent post featuring “Remind Me Who I Am.” Is that pretty indicative of the rest of the album — that theme of identity? Jason: You know, identity is a big focus in my life right now, it’s the thing I most want to talk about, and originally I set out to have it be the focus of this project and wrote several songs around it. But at some point I kind of released myself from writing around a specific theme and decided to let in whatever wanted to come. But as other songs emerged, so did themes, specifically the one-two punch of fear and shame. But I still think identity takes center stage. Understanding who we are as God’s loved children and the place we hold in his heart is, I think, the answer to every question being raised on the album. The idea of our essential belovedness kind of bookends the record. “Remind Me Who I Am” is the first track and lays claim to the rest of the songs by setting up the terms of the conversation that unfolds. The last song on the record is a hymn-like song I wrote called “Jesus We Are Grateful” and it closes with this lyric: “Jesus who gathers us like children in his arms You are the lamb of God who shepherds us from harm We will follow into family And be seated at your table Where matchless grace Of an orphan makes A child of God in full…” And so the album ends where it began: with the security of knowing that we belong, that we are no longer aliens and strangers–King Lear’s “poor naked wretches…that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.” We are held by the great love of a father who makes a place for us at his table. So though the concept of identity may not be the specific theme of every individual song, I think it’s still the crucial revelation for the album and haunts the rest of the songs. Matt: I love that you call it a one-two punch, because that definitely insinuates a level of violence–something we might not correlate with the issues that attack our identity. Jason: It is a violence, isn’t it? Fear and shame rage like storms inside of us that, if not for God’s grace, can destroy everything that’s most important to us. One of the songs on the album is called “No Thief Like Fear”, and that’s just how I see it, fear as a thief that threatens, bullies, and knocks us around before finally binding us and taking everything we care about most. I suppose a part of the irony is that it’s our caring for these things that makes us most vulnerable to fear. I am learning to be grateful for scripture’s guidance on keeping first things first, enjoying the good things while holding them loosely, treasuring my relationship with Christ above all else. I’ve heard people say this kind of thing for years and I admit it has often sounded like white noise to me, like Sunday school smarm, but I’m experiencing it these days as a crucial revelation, the kind of thing that defines a life. To love a thing too much is to drive it away. The commandments to love the Lord above all is a mercy to us. The problem of shame runs even deeper and causes even more damage, I think. It can be harder to diagnose because it finds really good hiding places behind our virtues like humility, service, and places like that. This past year, I feel like the Lord has led me personally on a journey of discovering shame that has long been hiding in my heart and that has, invisibly, infected every corner of my life. It’s that thing in us that always makes us afraid that we’re outsiders, and therefore causes us to act like outsiders. So yeah, I experience shame and fear as a violence in my soul. Matt: You discuss that journey of discovering shame, and certainly that must contrast with the life of a performer. Are you learning things about the tension that can exist there of the self on stage and the self inside that you didn’t know an album ago? Jason: I’m not sure if it certainly must contrast. Most performers I know are often tempted to use the stage to compensate for their deep sense of unworthiness. Maybe performers are so good because they’ve been performing all their lives, hiding their shame and hurt behind a persona they’ve developed. It’s like how so many comedians are profoundly sad people. There are few better hiding places than the stage–maybe the pulpit comes close. But as for me, shame is a theme I’ve kind of danced around for a long time, especially in songs like “The Golden Boy & The Prodigal” and “I Am New” from the last record. I think I’ve just been thrust deeper into it this time around. It’s been the most challenging couple of years of my life, with many circumstances that have forced me to look a little harder in the mirror. It has also been the most blessed two years of my ministry with the radio success and touring opportunities that we’ve had. God has used both of those things to peel back layers in my life and expose things that I didn’t even know were lurking in the shadows of my heart. One of the most remarkable experiences–that probably deserves it’s own blog, but I’ll skim the surface of it here–was the Make A Difference Tour with Tobymac, Third Day, Michael W. Smith, and Max Lucado. The trouble came every night when I would join them all on stage to sing Agnus Dei together before an arena full of people. Every night I was confronted with my deep, deep discomfort with being up there with those artists. Come on, I didn’t belong there with those heavy-hitters, right? There’s a rich story in there that I don’t have space here to talk about, but suffice it to say that I think that moment and that discomfort was why the Lord put me on that tour. About halfway through the tour I nearly stopped joining them for the last song, telling myself that I didn’t belong there and I was only doing it to be seen, to promote myself, etc. I was feeling mighty pleased with my humility–that I would choose to not join them on stage, instead trusting the Lord to promote me (never mind that he was the one who made it possible for me to be on the tour in the first place.) But the Lord didn’t let me get away with that and I was practically forced into this discomfort every night. You know how we’re told that it’s his kindness that leads us to repentance? I had some deep-rooted shame in my heart that had found a decent hiding place behind my humility and the Lord got to it by putting me on the biggest tour to go out in a decade and putting me on stage with a lineup of the most successful artists of the last twenty years. By the end of the tour, I realized that a lot of my discomfort was on account of wounds I didn’t even know I was carrying around in me related to my history with the fathers in my life. It was the Lord’s kindness that revealed the shame and unworthiness in my heart. It’s funny, too. I’ve been singing “I Am New” for about 4 years now, and I felt like I finally understood the song this year. Of course I thought I knew it when I wrote it (with Joel Hanson), but it means something different to me now to sing “Forgiven, beloved, hidden in Christ…” So yes, I have deeper access to the brokenness of my own condition – the Lord has been leading me there, surfacing deep wounds to bless them with a kiss and begin healing them. There’s a song I wrote that didn’t make this record that kind of sums up the past couple of years called “Love Is Going To Break Your Heart” – it may end up on a future project.  The chorus goes: Love will only let us go so far This love is gonna break your heart Break it open, open wide Kiss the wound deep inside You may try to run, but you can’t hide From the love, the love that’s gonna break your heart… That’s where a lot of these songs came from — and I imagine there are more to come. “Remind Me Who I Am” is all about that. “Nothing Is Wasted,” “I Will Find A Way.” Others, as well. “The End of Me” is about that, too–about coming to the end of your self, your hiding places, and finding grace waiting there for  you to offer a new beginning. “It’s okay, this is just the end / don’t be afraid, this is where it begins…” You can pre-order Jason’s upcoming release, A Way To See In The Dark, here. With your order, you’ll receive an instant download of his new single, “Remind Me Who I Am.” #JasonGray

In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abram and says “I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward. Abram says, “What will you give me, seeing I have no children? At this point my servant Eliezer is my heir!” God then reiterates the promise made to Abram in chapter 12 of making him a great nation, with descendants as many as the sand and stars. Abram faithes in God, and God counts Abram’s faith as righteousness. But then God says, “I’ve brought you from Ur to give you this land as an inheritance.” And Abram pulls a Gideon on God: “How do I know this is true?” So God makes a covenant. Animals are killed, and the pieces divided, and normally both parties would walk between the divided pieces, amidst the blood, to make a covenant together. But God puts Abram to sleep, and walks the covenant alone. He was making a point; this was to be a one-sided promise, God keeping his word, not based on whether or not Abram fulfilled his side of a contract. It was a covenant of grace to Abram which did not depend on Abram’s performance, the promise of an heir. In the very next chapter, ten years later, Abram and Sarai are getting impatient. They’ve waited ten years and are getting older. So they decide to help God out on keeping his promise, through their own thoughts, ways, and effort. Sarai suggests that Abram go into the tent with her servant Hagar, and a child is born, Ishmael, the child of their own effort, their own striving to help God fulfill his promise. Years later, when they are long past childbearing age, God speaks to them again and reiterates his promise of a child. In doing this, he is saying, “Ishmael is not the one I promised.” Fast forward. Isaac is born, and grows from baby to child. Sarah sees Hagar’s son Ishmael taunting Isaac, and says, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” When Paul wrote the epistle to the Galatians, a very similar circumstance was happening. The Galatian children of promise, born by faith, were suddenly caving in to the idea that they were to add self-effort rule-keeping to reliance on Christ. Paul says, “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Theny were adding rule-keeping, human effort, to reliance on Christ. Paul goes on to tell them, “…the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” In chapter four he digs into Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and their children; he says, “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.” Later he goes on, “….what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” He ties the self-effort of Abram and Sarai, striving to attain God’s promise by their own effort, with the believers in Galatia, who were believing they had to add their own human effort to help God out on his unilateral promise in Christ. What is this yoke of bondage we’re to avoid? It is to use our human effort (Gal 3:3) in the pursuit of being accepted, justified, sanctified, or glorified before God. We began by relying on the Spirit, who revealed Jesus Christ to us. Are we now going to be make ourselves holy by our effort (even combined with God’s help)? Are we eating from the wrong Tree, like Adam and Eve? Are we bringing the fruit of our works to God, like Cain? Will we strive by effort to help God fulfill his promises, and produce our own Ishmaels? Will we try to do it our way, like Saul? Will we begin with wisdom and end with futility, like Solomon? Do we begin by reliance on Christ as our redeemer and then introduce our own effort to “be like Christ?” Does a tree branch strain to produce fruit after it is grafted into the tree, or does it just sit there and rest in the Vine? We are to continue the same way we began – by reliance, by faith, by trust. If the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. We’re to walk according the Spirit, trusting his life in us, seeing him working in us, knowing him as our life, our source of every virtue; he is the power of easy conquest over every temptation. That’s the branch in the Vine. Do we in our human effort, with God’s help, have to keep the commandments? The Pauline answer is “No.” If we abide in Christ, trusting his life in us, will he cause us to walk in his ways and keep his statutes? Absolutely. By reliance/trust/abiding, the fruit of the Spirit is expressed in our lives. Should we read and meditate on the commandments? Of course. Reading the whole Bible, not just a few favorite passages, is a prerequisite to getting our minds and hearts in tune with the Eternal. But as faithers in Jesus Christ, who now lives within us, we have a new identity – new creations, holy, beloved, accepted, one spirit with the Lord. We are sons of the Kingdom. The commandments tell us who we really are, and if we are relying on Christ within us, the fruit that comes is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, and faith. Everything we need for life and godliness is given to us in Christ, not in our human effort, striving to be good. Christ is our indwelling righteousness, and in the end, he will get all the credit, not us. Our focus as the Christ-indwelt is to faithe in that Power within us and expect him to cause us to walk in his ways, and keep his statutes. Pressure off the human vessel; pressure on God within the vessel. “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:9-10). A branch doesn’t try to grow fruit. It just sits there up in the tree.

When I was on the 2010 Behold The Lamb Of God Christmas tour, I debuted one of the new songs from my upcoming record, A Way To See In The Dark. I was encouraged by how warmly it was received, and people have been asking about it ever since so I thought I’d share it and the story behind it here. The song is called “The Sound Of Our Breathing” and it was inspired by a teaching I heard a few years ago about how God’s name, YHWH, is comprised of aspirated consonants that, spoken, are the sound of breathing. It was a big concept that proved challenging to turn into a succinct lyric. I could have written it as a folksy singer/songwriter kind of song with twelve verses that took time to expound the idea, but when I was fishing for a melody and came upon what would end up being the pre-chorus (the name of God is the sound of our breathing / hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating), I fell in love with the idea of writing it as a pop/rock radio kind of song. That was the most challenging way to write a challenging song, but I get excited about that kind of thing. The kind of songs we’ve come to expect to hear on the radio can sometimes be disappointing, but I haven’t given up on it and its listeners just yet (see my comment 27 below for thoughts about radio singles). So it felt very missional to me to write it this way and it was also an invigorating creative challenge. Pop/rock anthem = less lyrics = really challenging when you have a big idea to convey. I’m not sure it has radio potential – time will tell – but it was an good challenge creatively to write the song in that direction. I was at a songwriter’s retreat a year ago in Eastern Washington and I brought the song to Doug McKelvey and Seth Mosely who were willing to tackle the challenge and bring it across the finish line with me. “The Sound Of Our Breathing” is the fruit of our labor and I hope you like how it turned out (you can listen to it at the bottom of this post) For the special edition of the record, I wrote a piece about the idea that inspired the song and I’ve included that for you here. The song follows: The Sound Of Our Breathing Take a breath and breathe it out. Do it again, slowly, and try to mean it. Breathing – of all things maybe we take it most for granted. Do we ever wonder why we are built this way, this soft machine of ours always pumping oxygen in and out? In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs. In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst. In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help us calm down. When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deep breath to find our courage. When I think about it, breathing looks almost like a kind of praying. I heard a teaching not long ago about the moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH. Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels. But scholars have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds, aspirated consonants that in the Hebrew alphabet would be transliterated like this: Yod, rhymes with “rode”, which we transliterate “Y” He, rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H” Vav, like “lava”, which we transliterate “V” or “W” He rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H” A wonderful question rises to excite the imagination: what if the name of God is the sound of breathing? This is a beautiful thought to me, especially considering that for centuries there have been those who have insisted that the name of God is so holy that we dare not speak it because of how unworthy we are. How generous of God to choose to give himself a name that we can’t help but speak every moment we’re alive. All of us, always, everywhere, waking, sleeping, with the name of God on our lips. In his Nooma video, Breathe, Rob Bell (a pastor whose obvious gifts of curiosity and a knack for asking provocative questions can get him into trouble) wonders what this means in key moments like when a baby is born – newly arrived on planet earth, must they take their first breath, or rather speak the name of God if they are to be alive here? On our deathbed, do we breathe our last breath? Or is it that we cease to be alive when the name of God is no longer on our lips? The most ironic of his questions is also the most beautiful: he wonders about the moment when an atheist friend looks across the table at you and says, “there. is. no. God”. And of course what you hear is “Yod. He. Vav. He.” There are few better illustrations of both God’s largesse as well as his humility, his omnipresence as well as his singular intimate presence within each of us. Breathe in. Breathe out. “He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs… the word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth…” (Romans 8:28, 10:8 The Message) [To pre-order A Way To See In The Dark in either the standard or special edition (which features stories like this and 8 additional tracks including an acoustic version of “The Sound Of Our Breathing“, go to jasongraymusic.com. Pre-ordering will give you an instant download of the current single, “Remind Me Who I Am”.] The Sound Of Our Breathing Jason Gray, Doug McKelvey, Seth Mosely [audio:soundofbreathing.mp3] Everybody draws their very first breath with Your name upon their lips Every one of us is born of dust but come alive with heaven’s kiss The name of God is the sound of our breathing Hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating Breathe in, breathe out, speak it aloud Oh oh, oh oh The glory surrounds, this is the sound Oh oh, oh oh Moses bare foot at the burning bush wants to know who spoke to him The answer is unspeakable like the rush of a gentle wind The name of God is the sound of our breathing Hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating Breathe in, breathe out, speak it aloud Oh oh, oh oh The glory surrounds, this is the sound Oh oh, oh oh In him we live and move and have our being We speak the name as long as we are breathing So breathe in Breathe out… Doubters and deceivers, skeptics and believers we speak it just the same From birth to death, every single breath is whispering Your name

In my dialogues with others about grace, forgiveness, and our new identity in Christ, the question is often raised, “What about the commandments? Don’t we have to keep the commandments?” Let’s look at the Ten Commandments for a moment: 1. You shall have no other gods before Me. 2. You shall not make any carved images to bow down to. 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 5. Honor your father and mother. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10. You shall not covet what belongs to another. A fairly daunting list, but that’s only ten, and in very simplified, easy form. Jesus came along and said that to hate someone in our heart is the same as murder, and to look upon someone with intent to sexually desire them is the same as adultery. Then the Apostle Paul comes along and says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her.” That makes “Don’t commit adultery” look like child’s play. Husbands, love your wives sacrificially, patiently, lovingly, never giving in for a moment to selfishness or being a tyrant or passivity or a harsh word. Likewise, “Do not steal” in the New Covenant becomes “give, give, give,” the opposite of stealing. The Law as given in the Old Covenant is actually a condescension on the part of God. He makes a lot of concessions. He doesn’t say that ruminating on a thing like sexual desire for someone not our spouse or hatred of another human being is wrong. He deals largely with actions at that point, except for a few key points – coveting (ruminating on desire for what others have), and having no other gods before God (inner atittude). Note that none of these commands say, “Try not to commit adultery” or “Husbands, try to love your wives…” They clearly and absolutely give the imperative. If you are one of those who has tried to be good, giving it your all, either you have not reached your saturation point, completely crumbled, and given up on your own effort, or you have hit that wall. If you haven’t, it is likely you won’t fully hear what I am saying here. But it may become relevant later when trying to “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” has done its full work. If you have hit that wall and been broken of thinking you can be good by your own effort, then what I have to say is for you. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law perfectly. He lived out each one of these commandments, the living embodiment of God’s Law – God’s living Word, the Logos. Now, Jesus makes a lot of statements in the Gospels, saying odd things like, “I can do nothing of Myself” and “The Father in Me does the works” and “If you’ve seen Me, you seen the Father.” Paul echoes these statements in his epistles, saying equally strange things like, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God…” and “All the fullness of the Godhead lives in Christ in bodily form, and you are filled full in Him.” Romans 6 says we died in Christ on the Cross – we were put in Him, and we died to the old life; the old man literally died. We resurrected in Christ, and the new man became operational. The old man was a union between the false spirit in Eph 2:2, and the new man a union between the one true God and man, a gift from God to anyone and everyone who will take it. So what does this mean, as new creations? For us, the old has gone, the new has come. What does it mean? It means that now we have a new inner Source – God Himself. The Word of God is God-breathed. Therefore only God can unlock and reveal its mysteries. Likewise, the goodness, the righteousness stated in the Bible’s commandments is really a statement of who God is. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church. That kind of love. Where does that kind of love come from? It comes from God alone, for God is love. Wives, respect your husbands. Where does that respect come from? It comes from the Spirit of the Son, who respects the Father. So as a new creation being, we have the indwelling Spirit of the Father, Son, and Spirit. That Trinity is the core of our new identity, the God who has come to us to live in a co-operative union with us, a unity. But unless I know I am completely weak, unable to do any eternal good in and of my human effort, I cannot know God as my Source. God’s power is perfected in weakness; in order for God to flow from us, we have to come to the end of thinking we’re independent selves who can be good like Christ if we just try harder. So what are the commandments? They now become promises God makes to us. I will have no other gods before Him. How is this possible? By putting my faith in Christ within me to make that unseen Fact a temporal reality. To not only refrain from stealing, ever, but to give, give, give? How? By relying on Christ as my provider and sustainer, the Source of everything I need for life and godliness. If I trust Him, I won’t have any need of stealing; in fact, I’ll be able to give and give, because His resources are limitless. Who needs the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” when he is trusting Christ within himself to love his wife as Christ loved the Church, to cause him to give himself for her? So “Do not commit adultery” is superseded by something which goes beyond the mere behavioral command. Christians should read the Old Testament, but in a new mindset – the mindset of a new creation man. The commands tell you who you really are, even if your behavior does not always show it. Ask and trust the Lord of your behavior to change you in that area, and persevere in faith, and He will always be faithful to do it. The Spirit of God intends to take us far beyond commandments in loving God and others.

God’s Grandeur By Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. I stumbled on this poem last night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. A collection of Hopkins’s poems is on my nightstand, so I looked it up again as soon as I got into bed. I read it again just now, then forced it on Jamie (a professed poetry hater, unless that poem is about her, by me). She said, when I finished, “What–in–the–world was all that about?” After I stopped laughing she said, “Give it to me again. I’m ready now.” I read it again, noticing some of its nuances for the first time, then she said, “So God made this beautiful world, and man’s made a mess of things, right? But the Holy Spirit is still present, and God’s beauty is stronger than the mess. Is that it?” “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, wondering how Hopkins would feel about his verse being summed up that way. “But a poem isn’t just a puzzle to be figured out. It’s also about how it affects you.” I shrugged. “Then again, you’re someone who likes things explained. So yeah. I suppose that’s what it’s about.” For me, it’s about the way he said it, about the beauty of a lovely thought expressed with love. Jamie’s not crazy about questions. She wants the comfort of answers, and I like the adventure of mystery. But spouses, like good poems, aren’t easy to sum up in a sentence or two; I like answers and comfort too, and she’s one of the most adventurous, trusting people I know. She’s a poem written in a language I’m only beginning to learn. I thought, “A poem this good deserves a third read-aloud.” So I read it to her one more time, loving it even more than I did before. Her silence was the silence of a soul inspired, the silence of someone whose husband had just read her a grand poem about God’s grandeur, a silence of—sleep? Yes, sleep. She was long gone by the end of the third reading. Not everyone is a lover of hundred-year-old poetry, and neither the poem nor my wife are any less wonderful because of it. I love that the last thing she heard as she drifted off was about the bright wings of God’s Holy Spirit brooding over us; whether you’re a poet or not, that’s good news. Here it is again. (And you have to read it aloud.) The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. I’m not familiar with Stanley Kunitz, but this video of him reading this, his favorite poem, brought tears to my eyes. His description of stumbling onto the poem is worthy of its own Rabbit Room post. Here’s a snippet of what he says: “Back in 1926, I was roaming through the stacks of the Widener Library at Harvard. When I was walking through the section on English poetry of the nineteenth century, I just at random lifted my arm and picked a book off the shelf. It was attributed to an author I was not familiar with—Gerard Manley Hopkins. The page that I turned to and began to read was a page devoted to a poem called ‘God’s Grandeur.’ I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It really shook me, because it was unlike anything else I had ever read before. Suddenly that whole book became alive to me. It was filled with such a lyric passion; it was so fierce and eloquent, wounded and yet radiant, that I knew that it was speaking directly to me and giving me a hint of the kind of poetry that I would be dedicated to for the rest of my life.” So how does this poem hit you? Have you ever been stopped in your tracks by a poem?

Josh Garrels’ new record, Love & War & the Sea in Between, has been steadily blowing my mind since I first downloaded it last month. I just can’t stop listening to it. It’s heartbreaking, invigorating, beautiful, and hopeful. I really can’t say enough good things about it. And Josh is giving it away for free so there’s no excuse not to check it out. Trust me. Go download it, listen to it for a week and let it do its work on you. I think you’ll be glad you did. This is one of the songs that just won’t leave me alone. It’s called “Farther Along” and it’s epic. “Farther Along” by Josh Garrels Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by Tempted and tried, I wondered why The good man dies, the bad man thrives And Jesus cries because he loves ’em both We’re all cast-aways in need of rope Hanging on by the last threads of our hope In a house of mirrors full of smoke Confusing illusions I’ve seen Where did I go wrong, I sang along To every chorus of the song That the devil wrote like a piper at the gate Leading mice and men down to their fate But some will courageously escape The seductive voice with a heart of faith While walkin’ that line back home So much more to life than we’ve been told It’s full of beauty that will unfold And shine like you struck gold, my wayward son That deadweight burden weighs a ton Go down into the river and let it run Wash away all the things you’ve done Forgiveness alright Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by Still I get hard pressed on every side Between the rock and a compromise Like the truth and pack of lies fighting for my soul And I’ve got no place left go ‘Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown More glory than the world has known Keeps me ramblin’ on Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall I’m free to love once and for all And even when I fall I’ll get back up For the joy that overflows my cup Heaven filled me with more than enough Broke down my levees and my bluffs Let the flood wash me And one day when the sky rolls back on us Some rejoice and the others fuss ‘Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess That the Son of God is forever blessed His is the kingdom and we’re the guests So put your voice up to the test Sing Lord, come soon Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by

My good friend, the able Doug McKelvey (who, you may recall, also had a hand in making the music video for Remind Me Who I Am), came to my house in Minnesota for a weekend to talk with me about my new record, my life, and…baby squirrels, among other things, in order to bring you a series of song diaries that offer stories behind the songs as well as a peek into the life of the Gray family. The first one is for the song, “Good To Be Alive” and is less a video about the song specifically than it is a peek into my world. Doug also pitched an idea to our label several months ago about a series of webisodes featuring Centricity artists as a memorable way to promote the new singles to radio music directors. Each webisode was written and directed by Doug and stars John Mays, the head of A&R at Centricity, as well as the featured artists in five minute situational comedies. I have said it many times and I’ll say again how grateful I am to be a part of Centricity – these webisodes are a great example of the outside of the box kind of thinking that is establishing this label and their artists as unique and memorable. And who knew that John Mays was such a comedic force!? If you like my episode, you may want to check out the others (and rumor has it that there may be a webisode featuring our own Andrew Peterson in the works.) I hope you enjoy these! And I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t remind you that you can pre-order my new record, A Way to See in the Dark here (and get an instant download of “Remind Me Who I Am”) Thanks for watching. Grateful. Song Diaries – Good To Be Alive Jason Gray Centricity U Webisode

This is last entry of a three-part series. You can read the first and second entries here: Cultivating Discipline Conquering Doubt Every day I live, I must decide if I am still a writer. The way I decide is by what I do. If I sit down with a pad of paper and pen and put my thoughts in paragraph form, I’m affirming the name placed on my lapel. If I read good books about writing, I’m showing concern for my craft. If I take time to think about the topics I wish to address and if I organize scatterbrained thoughts about my book, I’m performing the functions of my calling. If I pray about the words I choose as I sit at my computer screen and type those words into life, I’m focusing on the steps as I take them, but more importantly I’m taking those steps. Discipline: it’s a daily decision, but I never really understood what that meant until I sat down to write about it. It seems obvious to me now that discipline is formed by daily habits. Of course, it has to be; I don’t know how I missed that before. Maybe I knew on some superficial level, but now that I’ve struggled with words to describe the act, there’s an experiential connection to go along with those thoughts and it feels like the idea has sunken in a little more so that some sort of change is finally beginning to take place. I certainly hope so. I also never thought doubt could be connected with discipline until I began writing about doubt. During the writing process I stumbled onto this fact: the discipline of writing as often as I can helps conquer the doubt I feel about claiming the writer’s title for myself. Doubt is a harder battle for me because even after I do the work of discipline – pushing doubt into the corner – once the words are on the screen, he hops up swinging madly. So whether I struggle with who I am or what I’ve done, the questions are there every single day. Like I said, the discipline helps me fight him better, but I have yet to figure out how to get him out of the ring completely, which leaves me with yet another daily decision: do I care enough to fight an opponent today that I will face again tomorrow, and maybe for the rest of my life? When I first sat down to write this, I didn’t know it would turn into three separate posts. I knew I wanted to share the vision I have for a long-term project. I knew I wanted to start a discussion about how these visions get turned into realities. Then almost immediately, I began thinking about how my idea would be received in this forum. Actually, I worried about it. A lot. The familiar feeling reminded me how much I doubted myself when I first began to write, so I gathered a few of my favorite defenses and pieced them together in ways I hoped you could all relate to. I also wanted to tell you what I had learned in the throes of developing discipline, and hoped you all would have a few more tips for me on a subject which is much easier to talk about than to actually do. But the Rule of Three dictates that I come up with one last category which will inspire all of us toward more and more love and good deeds, right? So I’ve thought long and hard about this last writing tip and let me tell you, it’s a doozy. Are you ready? Here it is: care deeply. What? You mean, like–to quote one of my favorite movies, Reality Bites–be “a deep person who cares about things deeply”. Sounds a little vague, huh? Well, let me try and explain. It was the day after Christmas, 2009. I woke up early in the morning after a fitful night of sleep, with the strangest feeling of peace. In my mind I saw two distinct contrasting images: one representing how I used to feel about my conversations with God, and one representing my current view. In my head, I began to write a story where the backdrop changed from one to the other, and as I tried to pray and think at the same time, there was a passing thought about getting up and making myself a cup of tea. And the reason I ignored the thought and continued to lay in bed was this. I knew we only had Chai tea in our house and I just wasn’t in the mood for anything spicy. We were all going to be getting up and driving for ten hours that day to meet with family at a beach house in Virginia to celebrate the holidays. I wasn’t really looking forward to the drive, but knew it was going to be a really nice get-away once we got there. Finally, I reached a stopping point in my swirl of ideas and got up to have that morning cup of tea and try to capture some of my thoughts at the computer, and you’ll never guess what I found. Nestled in among the burgundy foil packs of Chai was a single red one. I pulled it out and read the front, English Breakfast. My mind jumped back to that passing thought, had I even formed a request? What sort of coincidence could this be and when did that foil packet materialize? I could have spent all day trying to come up with a reasonable solution or trying to convincing myself that I imagined the memory in response to the surprise of finding an out of place tea bag. Instead, I boiled some water and pulled out a mug. I decided to believe Jesus cared enough about me to send me a caring message, in a physical, tangible way. Maybe it’s too romantic a notion for you to believe but if you only knew the images I saw that morning and the complete conviction I felt of being seen, known, and heard by God. I sat down at the computer and pulled up a passage from Haggai, of all places. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. – Hag. 2: 7-8 And I think that’s when it began to sink in for me. I began to care more about writing as a means of communing with my maker, and creating a record of our relationship, than I cared about making a name for myself. Sure, I’m still tempted to seek out praise for my words and wit, but overall, I’m finding much more joy in this journey as I realize all the answers he’s led me to as I struggle with questions through essays, poems, and stories. The writing is there for me first. What a gracious blessing! The mind and imagination he gave me is worth conquering doubt and cultivating discipline, so I can give back to him my faith and trust through the words I write. Anything else that comes, if it ever does, will just be the icing on top, and never so sweet as the cake underneath. So care deeply for your talents, your gifts, and the processes that get you there. Care enough to work with them for God’s glory, but remember often just how deeply he cares for you.

When Philip and I were in Paris a few years ago, he took me to the Annick Goutal shop on the Rue Bellechasse to buy me some perfume. With a characteristic twist of City-of-Light-magic, we stepped off the bustling little street and into what seemed for all the world like a nineteenth-century parfumerie. The walls were lined with open shelves painted buttery-cream and touched with gilt, all bearing the same simple offerings of iconic ivory boxes, and in the center of the tiny store stood a mahogany display table, ranged with ribbon-topped bottles of scent like debutantes lined up for a dance. I was enchanted, and, despite the close quarters, completely overwhelmed. At that moment a clerk in a smart black dress appeared from behind a velvet curtain and proceeded to welcome us in her mellifluous tongue, and to ask how she could be of assistance. Philip answered her at once, with that utterly un-self-conscious ease of his that had been continually amazing me from the moment we’d touched down at Charles de Gaulle. He speaks French beautifully, though he’d be the first to deny it, and I loved watching him banter with the crepe man at his cart on Saint-Germain and the vendors of roses in the Marché aux Fleurs. (There was the little incident at the Rive Gauche café wherein the woman waiting on us stoutly declared—in English, no less—that there was no such thing as a “croissant with chocolate inside of it”. She must have been having a bad day, for the customer next to us at the counter simply laid down her newspaper and remarked quite calmly, in French, “I think he means a pain au chocolat.” Which, of course, he did. Without her intervention, I fear we might have gone breakfast-less that morning.) I smiled rather lamely at the bright Frenchwoman as she showed us around the parfumerie, chattering away over the various top notes and essences. In Paris, as in other places we’ve traveled, it has been my code to wear black and keep my mouth shut, endeavoring to avoid the quintessential stereotype of the American abroad—which is itself a stereotype, I am well aware. Nevertheless, I maintained my credo with a modicum of dignity, sniffing the samples she provided, enjoying the melody of the language as she and my husband conversed over roses and jasmine and honeysuckle, picking up the bottles in turn to read their bewitching names. All was going well until the shopkeeper turned to me with a direct question, her eyes alight with friendly inquiry and her words falling out in a rill of beautiful incomprehensibility. I blushed and blurted that I didn’t speak French, and without batting an eye she repeated her question in English. Something must have snapped in me at that moment, I remember it with such crystalline clarity. I didn’t want to be on the outside of such a magical language—I wanted to learn the spell that would put such beauty into my mouth, give me the savoir faire to move among the people of a world so different from my own. A latent desire sparked awake in that little gilt and crystal shop and I wanted it so bad I could taste it. Philip picked up a bottle and grinned at the name. “’Ce Soir ou Jamais’,” the shopkeeper laughed, then turned to me with arched eyebrows and a very Parisian tilt of her head, “Tonight—or never!” We all laughed together at the melodrama implied and I dutifully wafted the sample under my nose. The breath of Turkish roses was intoxicatingly tempting, with its slightly grassy balance and hints of jasmine and pear—a bit more daring than anything I’d worn before. In the end, however, I went with the lovely La Violette, exquisitely uncomplicated in its old-fashioned reserve. I think Philip could have seen that one coming. When I told him later of my resolution to learn French he was delighted. It was something we could share, another cord of communion to tangibly express the great mystery of making one life out of two. I have to confess, I am continually humbled by the enthusiastic sympathy with which he greets my desires and the practical ways he accommodates my ambitions. Marriage to him has been a flourishing in good, rich ground; a growing into dreams I didn’t even know I had. Nevertheless, with all his encouragement, with the boon of a French-speaking husband upon which to try out my halting attempts, year after year slipped by without my acquiring much more confidence or vocabulary than a few highly useful phrases like, “Would you like some ice cream?” and “The chickens are in the henhouse.” I chalked up my remarkable failure to a computer program that didn’t work, an audio series that was missing the book, and general busyness (most mauvais of all). But the fact is, I was just too scared. I blushed when I said things to him, across our own kitchen table. What sounded like music in his mouth got stuck in the back of my throat. I psyched myself up, at his laughing pep talk, to order in French at our favorite boulangerie and then punted at the last minute, asking for “a couple of coffees and two croissants with chocolate inside of them”. It seemed hopeless. “You have to be an actor,” Philip told me again and again. “You have to just throw yourself out there—overdo it. Play the role of a French person.” Of course, it’s what the best language teachers will tell you. (And most other teachers in their own way, I’d imagine, from writing to sky-diving.) Adventure presupposes risk; a step in the direction of a dream is often a deliberate revolt against a comparatively snug complacency. The desire accomplished may be sweet to the soul, but it often exacts a steep price from our ego. The jolly Chesterton said it best: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” If there’s anything God has been teaching me in the past year, it’s that flying in the face of fear is one of the best ways to shock my soul awake, like a plunge into cold water after a wild flight on a rope swing. Impracticability forces me to rely on Him in practical ways. To be sure, the gremlins I’ve endeavored to stare down might look more like Gizmo to stouter souls than mine. But God knows my weakness, and I believe He knows just where to kindle my heart with desire to flame light into those dark places of insecurity and self-reliance. “Delight yourself in the Lord,” the Psalmist urges, “and He will give you the desires of your heart.” God often grants desire, astonishingly and miraculously. But perhaps it’s more wondrous still that He gives it, employing even the lesser yearnings of our nature to keep us alive to that sehnsucht we’re all so blessedly cursed with. In the light of this charge towards a more holy recklessness, my husband threw down a dare a few weeks ago. He had listened patiently to the latest installment in the Lanier-wants-to-learn-French saga, had assured me for the eleventy-first time that I could do it. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “I’ll give you one week to find a tutor.” A tutor? A thousand excuses rushed to my lips: too expensive, too time-consuming. Too terrifying. But instead I took the hand he offered and shook it solemnly. “Alright.” In the end, the tutor God provided was not the one I would have initially approached. I would have been way too intimidated, though I’ve known him most of my life. An erstwhile missionary to France and an extraordinarily gifted linguist, his French is so perfect even the French admire it. He’s the kind of person I would have been happy to practice my conversational skills on—after about twenty years of study. And instead, not two weeks after my challenge, I was sitting with him in the courtyard of a coffee shop in town, telling him I preferred thé vert over café noir and whether I was going to the supermarket en voiture or à pied. I think God thought it was hilarious. “For an hour and a half, I’m going to speak pretty much nothing but French to you, Lanier,” he told me. “And you’re going to speak French to me.” It seemed so preposterous—and conspicuous. I have a horror of looking stupid and my self-conscious sensibilities quailed at the thought of being overheard in my incompetence by the other patrons. I felt like everyone would be staring at me—bemusedly. (As if they were all writers, or something. Writers stare at people. And they write things in notebooks, which can be very disconcerting to highly-sensitive individuals. I should know.) There were evidently no writers among the clientele that afternoon, however, for no one paid us the slightest attention. Several people were smoking and a couple of dogs barked at each other across the courtyard. A delivery truck pulled up in the cobbled alley we were facing with a snort of diesel exhaust. “This feels like Paris!” my friend laughed, settling back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction. “Vas-tu à l’église ce soir?” Ce soir—that I knew, and I think I replied that, yes, I was going to church that night. But “ce soir” inevitably summons the words “ou jamais” on its heels, Philip and I have laughed about it so many times since our afternoon in the parfumerie. And out of the jumble of ballet French and random vocabulary I’ve pocketed over the years, I pulled out another adverb, coupling it with the one I had in hand as a sort-of motto for my aventure en Français: Maintenant ou jamais. Now or never. And while I’m throwing caution to the winds, it might just be the time to try out a new scent. Pourquoi pas?

The first music video from Jason Gray’s upcoming A Way to See In the Dark album just hit the web. Enjoy.

Rabbit Roomers, I give you two reasons to be excited about the song you’re about to hear. 1) It’s about a superhero. 2) It’s by Ben Shive (also a superhero–of music). For the last several months I’ve been listening as Ben put this record together in the next room and I can’t wait for you guys to hear it. It’s going to explode your brain and leave you drooling on the floor (but in a good way). If you’re one of Ben’s Kickstarter supporters, you should be getting an email in the next week or so with download instructions. Everyone else should keep a eye right here on the Rabbit Room where you’ll be able to pre-order soon. Here’s your first peek at the goodness to come: Ben Shive’s “She’s Invincible” from The Cymbal Crashing Clouds.

It’s been a month since my body arrived back in Colorado from my time in England. My mind and soul have taken a little longer to settle back in the circles of ordinary life. But this doesn’t phase me, because I’m not restless, or angsty, or resistant to normal life. It’s more as if the taste of my time away tinges my time here at home. The peace of it lingers. I’m loathe to let it go. Who knows, maybe it will stay. Maybe the time I spent wandering amidst long, sheep-starred, dapple down hills and the mornings spent staring into an upside down bowl of limpid, blue light, and the early hours spent in reading, in pondering, and in a hushedness of thought I have not touched in months, changed me. Gentled my hungry soul. Calmed the striving of my heart. The blaze of my questions…as to future…to life…to purpose…died down. But a new warmth came. Like the crackle of a well-made fire in a cottage on an autumn day. When you come into a room and know yourself home. Home, as much as any body can be in this world. And for me, this time, it wasn’t yet a physical place. It was a state of soul. A healedness of sight. A gentlednesss. I found a bunch of truths that I had dropped amidst my struggle to figure out my future. That God is lovely. That the poor in spirit are blessed, that I am blessed when I need God’s help most. That the humble inherit God’s earth. And that God’s good earth sings, and thrums, and speaks his heart afresh each day into the people whose existence he wills, and holds, and never forsakes. That love—of God, and his people, and the beauty he has made—is the great, burning work to which we humans are called. That all else really is naught compared to him. (But I needed to quiet to say it and know that I meant it in truth.) And the joy of it all is with me still.

The setting for the story of our life is changing. We’re moving. It’s not the biggest, most daring move. We’re not traveling 8,000 miles to live in Africa (as my parents did with us when I was a kid). We’re moving about 100 feet. We are buying and moving into our neighbor’s house. (Insert coveting jokes here.) Boring? I hope not. The small story of our family moving is about more than more space, more than moving up the hill into a little bigger house. It’s about a dream, a vision, a story our lives are telling. Overstating it? We’re moving because we believe the setting of the new house will allow us to thrive in our passions. We believe it will help us be and do who we are and what we are called to. Space, the final frontier. We did not need more space. We have said, “we need more space,” and have heard others say it many times. It’s sort of true, but not really. We have more space than most people in the world and in history have had. (A good measure, I think. Especially to gauge thankfulness.) We could have made it work. We want more space. Why? We want to have people over. Hospitality has been on our hearts for a long time and we want to have a space that makes that possible/easier. The place we’re moving to is not huge, by any means. But the way it’s laid out allows for a lot more room to have people in our home. The fact that there’s more opportunity for easier hospitality figures into our plans for our children. We plan to have a lot of “home games” with their friends. We want our kid’s friends of all ages to want to come to our place and to have room to operate and have a good great time. This house gives us more of that. The place has a small hut that I plan to use for writing. A Writer’s Hut, which Chris Yokel –outstripping all competitors– has perfectly named “The Forge.” It’s kind of a dream-come-true. (Of course, it needs some work. Much like the novel I can’t wait to return to writing when things settle a bit.) I could go on, but you get it. We think this place will serve to aid us in our various vocations. And that’s the point of writing a little about this. The setting changes, the story proceeds. I could go on about our situation in particular, but I mainly just want to connect the move (an ordinary thing) with our calling and our story. So, here’s to the wild, wonderful adventure of moving next door! What’s happening in your life? What is God doing to advance the plot of your story?

Melanie Penn has been in the studio lately working with Ben Shive on a whole bunch of new songs that I can’t wait to hear and she’s just released the video for “Ordinary Day” from her first album Wake Up Love. Today you can pick up Wake Up Love in the Rabbit Room store for $10 ($7 download).

Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by A few tears streamed down my face the first time I sat, mesmerized, watching a video performance of Josh Garrels playing this song from his latest album, Love & War & The Sea In Between. It’d been a while since I’d checked in on Josh’s music, and I found a couple new tracks from a forthcoming album. “Farther Along” was the first listen and it reached me at a specific place that I didn’t even realize needed words of hope. I felt something beyond me saying things were going to be okay, yet it’s not that I was surfing the web looking for music videos to fill a void in that moment. That’s the beauty of Josh’s music–a musical gift that beautifully yet forcefully expresses the intersection where divinity meets humanity. And he’s been doing this for years. Yet Love & War & The Sea In Between is Garrels’ magnum opus. It’s a collection of 18 tracks that fully encapsulate the tension we feel between two warring kingdoms. Sometimes they’re siren songs birthed in a garden we’ve only read about (“Ulysses”); others are a call to arms, a musical summons to engage the world on behalf of a greater cause of love and truth and beauty (“The Resistance”). Taken as a whole, they remind us of the true nature of our calling and the far country of which we’re a greater part. Garrels’ comes by his folk-hop fusion honestly. His parents sold their possessions and joined a Christian commune of sorts where Josh was born. His family left after several years, and Josh found himself immersed in the worlds of hip-hop and skate culture through his teenage years. I’ve known him for nearly a decade, even venturing through Israel and Palestine together for a couple of weeks a few years ago, and he’s always obeyed the internal impulse of the spirit’s voice. Whether hopping trains or pastoring a church, I’ve never known Josh to care much about the expectations of others, and his music remains untainted because of it. For those who have yet to plunge into Josh’s music, the good news is that it’s free for the next year. Even though Love & War is the most expensive album he’s recorded, I’ll never forget the conversation where he told me that he and his wife both knew they were called to give away this music–both in digital and physical form for one full calendar year. While he relayed an initial apprehensiveness about the approach, any longtime listener to Josh Garrels realizes he’ll be fine as long as he’s following his heart. You can download Love & War & The Sea In Between for free at Josh’s website (JoshGarrels.com). Three of Josh’s other albums (Lost Animals (2009), Jacaranda (2008), and Over Oceans (2006)) are available in the Rabbit Room store. #JoshGarrels

The Dream of the Rood (the Cross) is, according to The Norton Anthology of English Literature, “the finest of a rather large number of religious poems in Old English.” It is one of the oldest works of Old English surviving today. It was preserved in the “Vercelli Book” found in northern Italy in the 10th century, but may be much older. Its author is unknown, although scholars have often suggested either of two Anglo Saxon Christian poets: Cynewulf or Cædmon. The entire poem is about 1200 words, and was written in the alliterative style of Old English. The poem begins and ends with the story told by the dreamer; the central section is from the point-of-view of the Cross itself. The Dream of the Rood portrays powerful paradox. The Cross is a symbol both of shame and of glory. It is a place of defeat and victory. The Cross submits to God’s will — not bending or breaking, although it could have fallen and crushed the crucifiers — and is thus used to crucify Christ. The Rood suffers along with Jesus, feeling the nails pierce its cross-beam, being stained with blood, even feeling the mocking that was flung at Christ. The connections between the dreamer, the Cross, Christ himself, and ourselves are strongly felt in this poem. from The Dream of the Rood The choicest of visions I wish to tell, which came as a dream in middle-night, after voice-bearers lay at rest. It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree born aloft, wound round by light, brightest of beams. All was that beacon sprinkled with gold. Gems stood fair at earth’s corners; there likewise five shone on the shoulder-span. All there beheld the Angel of God, fair through predestiny. Indeed, that was no wicked one’s gallows, but holy souls beheld it there, men over earth, and all this great creation. Wondrous that victory-beam—and I stained with sins, with wounds of disgrace. I saw glory’s tree honoured with trappings, shining with joys, decked with gold; gems had wrapped that forest tree worthily round. Yet through that gold I clearly perceived old strife of wretches, when first it began to bleed on its right side. With sorrows most troubled, I feared that fair sight. I saw that doom-beacon turn trappings and hews: sometimes with water wet, drenched with blood’s going; sometimes with jewels decked. But lying there long while, I, troubled, beheld the Healer’s tree, until I heard its fair voice. Then best wood spoke these words… The above translation is by Jonathan A. Glenn and may be viewed in its entirety here. Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca